Added two more BJ Wilson pictures, from Mick Grabham's
collection: one shows BJ in action at the Hollywood
Bowl in 1973, and the other  a splendid portrait 
shows a moment of blissful camaraderie as Chris and Barrie, on
banjo and mandolin respectively, encore with Souvenir of
London(thanks again, Mick)

The Mammoth Task: Procol Harum
news in its chart context, kindly extracted for BtP from the New
Musical Express of 31 years ago today by Yan Friis: Homburg peaks
in the chart back home as Procol Harum undertake their North
American tour of clubs and television studios: and a Gary Brooker
profile.

Added an article on Procol Harum's fine showing in the
Netherlands' Radio Veronica chart(thanks, Sam)

To conclude our week featuring pieces about Keith Reid, we add
the substantial interview he did with
Paul Carter in Shine On in 1997. Poets Betjeman and Auden
are touched on, as are Keith's first significant record-listening,
his early non-collaborators, and his favourite cover of AWSoP
 an instrumental one, of course!

Charly Troska has received great numbers of recordings from PH
fans for the Whalers' CD project, and
has a lot of remaining work to do preparing them. The new
deadline for sending recordings (details
here) is the end of the year 1998. (thanks, Mirek)

October 24:Happy 62nd Birthday, Bill
Wyman. Bill celebrates his birthday playing with the Rhythm Kings
in Oslo, Norway

In the week of Keith Reid's birthday we unveil a gruesome page where we shall collect
any parodies of his work that we come across. Imitation is said
to be the sincerest form of flattery ... we hope this page will
be taken in the spirit in which it is made.

More Reidism: no-one seems able to track down the Eng Lit
thesis that was supposedly written about Procol words ... but
Greg Panfile writes fascinatingly about presenting
Reid to a poetry class at Rutgers University in the early 70s.
' ... the dark predilections of Keith Reid seemed to be more in
tune with what was actually happening than the perhaps sincere
but certainly unrealistic views from the last few remaining
hippies ...' he notes. (thanks,
Greg)

Added a link to a great Rhythm Kings website: find it on this page, next to the new picture
of Gary onstage in Paris (thanks,
Thierry)

October 21:

The Mammoth Task: Procol Harum
news in its chart context, kindly extracted for BtP from the New
Musical Express of 31 years ago today by Yan Friis: the tantalising
prospect of a multi-instrumental Fisher solo LP, a far more
realistic and interesting possibility than those film projects.

More Reidishness: did Keith Reid write with Cheap Trick? Hard
to tell from this article ... (thanks, Sam)

To mark Keith Reid's birthday, we added a good interview with Procol's 'Mona-Lisa
mouthed poet' about Exotic Birds and Fruit: the
British political background is touched on, as is the
contribution of Chris Thomas. The
review, by Lance Loud, comments on many of the side-one songs:
perhaps it was once longer, and the rest ended up on the sub-editor's
floor (thanks, Doug Callowhill)

Upgraded our scan of the sleeve of Something Magichere and here(thanks, Richard)

Added this
link to a Ronnie James Dio page, which suggests that Matthew
Fisher was in the studio with Dio / Ritchie Blackmore / ELF in
1974, maybe recording a song called Black Sheep Of The Family
(seemingly never released), and also later (77-78?) maybe
auditioning for Rainbow? The page is quite long: search for
'Fisher' and 'Fischer'  the name is misspelled once (thanks, Jonas)

October 16:

Added a page dealing with Carlo Little ... and the album
Matthew Fisher recorded with Hurricane
... and some matrimonial reflections (thanks, Joan)

Added the liner notes for
the Westside Shine on Brightly ... Plus! release
... so you will know exactly what you've ordered.

Added graphics to two setlist pages, here
and here(thanks, Robert ... and for the rest of the parcel!)

October 14:

Added the track-listing for a
long-awaited Procol Harum release, the Westside Shine On
Brightly ... plus!: more about this recording  which
sounds great  in days to come.

The Mammoth Task: Procol Harum
news in its chart context, kindly extracted for BtP from the New
Musical Express of 31 years ago today by Yan Friis: further
extraordinary news about Procol and ex-Procol film projects,
while the UK scene continues to be beset by doubts, cancellations
and reversals: no wonder Gary got ill again.

Renewed our scan of the US sleeve of Shine on Brightlyhere, here, here
and here(thanks, Richard)

October 13:

Added a lightning-swift resumé of
this weekend's Rhythm Kings concert, in which Gary Brooker stole
the show (thanks, Frans!)

'I do not consider myself unfortunate, nor do I for one minute
regret leaving Procol Harum.'

Added a couple of letters about
the organ-part in A Whiter Shade of Pale written by
Matthew Fisher to Melody Maker in 1973, one provoking and
one rebutting an oddly childish and calculated response from a
reader.

Here's a
link to some David Bowie reviews that mention Matthew Fisher
playing offstage piano and organ (including some Beethoven) with
The Spiders from Mars (thanks,
Joan)

And history needs to be rewritten:
on the day of BtP's first anniversary, the hit count on our index
main-page reached a record-breaking 178 visitors.

Added a fine new piece written for
BtP by Richard Beck, chronicling his impressions of two Grand
Hotel-era tours; much musical detail and atmosphere, as well
as insights like 'I concede one tiny conceit perhaps shared by
some readers: believing I was among a humble few who knew their
music well, I have always taken the greatest delight in watching
others respond to a Procol concert for the first time. This
concert demonstrated conclusively to me that this was truly the
best band alive.' (thanks, Richard)

Fittingly, Richard's article is dedicated to the memory of
Barrie Wilson, 18 March 1947  8 October 1990. We're also
proud to be publishing, for the first time, two photographs of BJ in the studio,
taken during an overdubbing session for Beyond the Pale 
a most significant track for this website  and kindly
submitted to us by Mick Grabham (thanks,
Mick, and welcome aboard!)

The Mammoth Task: Procol Harum
news in its chart context, kindly extracted for BtP from the New
Musical Express of 31 years ago today by Yan Friis: Homburg
enters the chart, and there's further confusion about concert
dates for the 'negative' Procol Harum.

Added a transcript of Gary Brooker's perverse hopes for Homburg as
expressed on BBC Radio One: this was his attitude to the sort of
criticisms of the new single that were being expressed in reviews
such as the NME excerpt
we published yesterday.

Added another Procol Harum cover
... no, not AWSoP in a ceilidh arrangement by the
Clockwork Gamelan of Antarctica, but something rather more
unexpected and welcome: Repent Walpurgis, at last!(thanks, Fred Schröter)